Women at the cross: Why the inconsistencies?

[davidbrainerd]

Well, ok that is a better example but from your example I can speculate that the reason had to do with the desire to introduce racial diversity - a clear trend in media and society as a whole in the last 20 years. In the cases I've mentioned there is so little information provided about a couple of them - Mary the mother of James and Joses and Joanna that there seems to be no purpose if the account is fictional. In the case of the mother of John and James we do know who she is so we can at least conjure up a possible motive as I have done with your examples. But the other two - it just seems arbitrary - if the account if fictional.

The purpose is obvious. Mary, Mary, Mary. Mary Magdalene, if alone, could be assumed to be Jesus' girlfriend. We can't have that.

But how do we put other women there when there was only Mary before? Make em all named Mary.

? Who says there was only Mary before? Nobody.

John's gospel. I don't think it makes sense to think of any whole gospel as "first" when it comes to the canonicals. Some parts of each gospel came before some parts of each of the others. But some part of each has been rewritten with knowledge of the others. Luke's story of Jesus praying for the cup to pass from him obviously came before John's denial of that story, yet John's resurrection account with an admission that initially it was thought that Jesus' body was stolen or moved by a gardener obviously comes before the synoptic guards at the tomb story. In their present form these gospels are not completely independent of each other, nor is dependence one way like Matthew depending on Luke without Luke in turn depending on Matthew.

[TedM]

? Who says there was only Mary before? Nobody.

John's gospel.

If you re-read the OP, John does not only mention Mary. I think you may be mixing this up with the recent thread. Rather, John is the one who mentions 3 Marys from the get go.

I don't think it makes sense to think of any whole gospel as "first" when it comes to the canonicals. Some parts of each gospel came before some parts of each of the others. But some part of each has been rewritten with knowledge of the others. Luke's story of Jesus praying for the cup to pass from him obviously came before John's denial of that story, yet John's resurrection account with an admission that initially it was thought that Jesus' body was stolen or moved by a gardener obviously comes before the synoptic guards at the tomb story. In their present form these gospels are not completely independent of each other, nor is dependence one way like Matthew depending on Luke without Luke in turn depending on Matthew.

One might think that if they were piecemeal like that, all these inconsistencies - obvious ones - would have been wiped out by the time they were in the cannon. Why do the consistencies remain, IYO?

[JoeWallack]

My hypothesis is that the strange inconsistencies make a lot more sense if the account of the crucifixion is based on reality than a made up story because the characters involved that were CHANGED were so terribly unimportant. There was no theological purpose. But, if these accounts were based on real oral traditions and hearsay that go back to actual happenings, they make sense. More sense, at least, to me.

JW:
Right, because there are contradictions in names it is more likely to be historical. Likewise, if there was variation in numbers and types, it's more likely to be historical. So if a subsequent Gospel said there was a man there, more historical. And if one of the people there was a leprechaun, more historical. And if one of the witnesses was a talking donkey (no problem since you believe in talking donkeys), more historical.

Again, I think there should be an Apologetics folder here that this type of Thread could go straight to. Has it been that long since there was discussion here of the attributes of quality witness:

• 1) Multiple
  
  2) Independent
  
  3) Confirmation
  
  4) Credible (Objectivity & Placement)

The Internal evidence also tests very high for Fiction:

• 1) The original narrative is mostly fiction
  
  2) The ending of the related story (resurrection) is fiction
  
  3) The story is stylishly written
  
  4) The author is unknown

So the default position based on Literary analysis is fiction. The variation of names is just confirmation of fiction. You would need outside support and or credible witness evidence to offset and there isn't any.


Joseph

Figures Don't Lie But Liars Figure. A Proportionate Response to the Disproportionate Response Claim (Gaza)

[Peter Kirby]

no problem since you believe in talking donkeys

This is not true about TedM. Check your target before applying anti-Apologetics tropes.

[JoeWallack]

no problem since you believe in talking donkeys

This is not true about TedM. Check your target before applying anti-Apologetics tropes.

JW:
You're right, I should have used a quacking duck instead.


Joseph

Figures Don't Lie But Liars Figure. A Proportionate Response to the Disproportionate Response Claim (Gaza)

[Peter Kirby]

no problem since you believe in talking donkeys

This is not true about TedM. Check your target before applying anti-Apologetics tropes.

You're right, I should have used a quacking duck instead.

Anything would be an improvement on personal attacks that aren't true.

[outhouse]

Who, writing fiction, would give a damn who the women were?

.

If it was fiction they would copy word for word, instead we have separate communities telling you what was important to them

Exactly. . Now if the gospels were actually written say 50 years after these stories were already being circulated - with such detail that they had the names of various women standing by at the cross - then yes there was time for various characters of importance to have been created. But the fact that none of these gospels writers TOUT the importance of these people suggests that isn't the case. It suggests that all these changes weren't in order to LIFT UP special people in their communities, but was more for the purpose of preserving their own version of what happened.

Agreed.

But I'm saying they were more likely important for preserving history than for preserving a newly created history from the hands of Genius Mark

Yes because they changed what was more important and they thought they had a more accurate version that matched their theology better.

Remember they had no mark Title to it at that time, and it was just good news they thought was incomplete.

[outhouse]

The Internal evidence also tests very high for Fiction:

Joe since you cannot provide a credible replacement hypothesis to explain the origins of Christianity with any credibility what so ever, you should lighten up of the fallacious attacks, and dishonesty.

Dishonesty in that you have no credible account of what is fiction and what is not. Using mythology to sell theology using rhetorical prose was the normal no matter how historical something was. BUT YOU cannot prove they did not believe in the myth and were not writing what they thought really happened.

Fiction is a story or similar work derived from imagination, and this story plagiarized from OT theology as a foundation makes this a theological piece not one of fiction. Are there fictional elements??? ""probably"" but lets not overstate your rhetoric, you are not an authority here.

[Peter Kirby]

IF THE CRUCIFIXION NEVER REALLY OCCURRED - WHY SUCH DIFFERENCES?: If Mark started this story and he mentions all 3 by name, why didn't any of the other 3 gospel writers simply match the names? Since Mark mentioned Salome, why didn't Luke or Matthew too? Why did they both mention a different 3rd women? Why is Luke the only one to mention Joanna? And why is GJohn the only source that clearly states that Jesus' mother was there - but then doesn't even mention her name? Why do they each use different relationships to describe who the women were (ie GMark says "mother of James and Joses", Matthew says "mother of the sons of Zebedee", Luke says "mother of James", " John says "wife of Clopas"? IF they were trying to flesh out who from either a fictional story or a group that they just THINK existed, WHY, and why did they do it so poorly?

Note, I'm not looking to solve the question of who was who. I'm trying to understand how we can get such differences if in fact there was no historical crucifixion in the first place?

The OP isn't completely clear, but subsequent posts make it clear that the expectation is this:

* "Fictional" accounts need all changes made to be meaningful and significant. (And, "Fiction in the sense that I was addressing it is what most people normally consider to be fiction - ie made up stuff that the author knows is made up.")
* "Historical" accounts don't. What explains it is the telephone game, basically: "people trying to recreate and pass along what little information they could recall but since there were many Mary's and many James' it was prone to normal human error."

Some comments explain more about this view of what "fiction" is:

[author of] GMark was a genius who took a religion about a celestial being derived from scripture and turned him into a walking, talking, healing human being who lived in a specific place and at in a specific recent time period.

Who, writing fiction, would give a damn who the women were?

So, the need for a community to take an initial outline of a story and remove and replace and interject new characters that nobody seems to care about makes little sense to me.

But in the case of fiction, if you already have someone out there - Mark perhaps? - who has taken the thin outline of a story and fleshed it out and put some names to it - names of people who were fairly unimportant to his story - ie Mary, mother of James and Joses, and Salome - why would another writer remove and replace some of those characters? They aren't important enough to do so.

there is no need to replace nobody figures with other nobody figures

the characters involved that were CHANGED were so terribly unimportant. There was no theological purpose.

This sounds like a testable hypothesis. All we have to do is to look at fiction where we know it is fiction and see whether we can find examples of:

• replacing nobody figures with other nobody figures
• characters involved that were CHANGED that were so terribly unimportant
• remove and replace and interject new characters that nobody seems to care about

Cinderella is one of the most retold fictional stories of all time, or so I'm told. This blogger helpfully informs us of how Cinderella's name remains fairly stable, while those of the stepsisters fluctuate (and are sometimes not named, or sometimes not named in full). Obviously some can be explained as localization or characterization. But the authors in any case felt very free to rename them, sometimes for no more apparent reason than whim or fancy.

https://appellationmountain.net/gorgeou ... epsisters/

Anastasia and Drizella – Maybe the best known version of the stepsisters’ names, popularized by Disney’s animated classic. They’re about to be even more recognized, thanks to a 2015 live action adaptation of the enduring tale.

Armelinda and Maguelonne – Pauline Viardot started out as an opera star. By the early twentieth century, she had graduated to composing. She wasn’t the first to tackle Cinderella, but her version renamed the stepsisters Armelinda and Maguelonne. Maguelonne is a very rare diminutive form of Margurite.

Beverly – ABC Family is big on Cinderella-esque tales, and in their 2011 A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song, Lucy Hale plays the worthy Cinderella-esque Katie. Beverly is her undeserving stepsister.

Birdina and Serafina – Back in 1955, MGM released The Glass Slipper, their musical take on the famous story. Leslie Caron played the lovely Cinderella, while Elsa Lanchester – think Bride of Frankenstein – played her none-too-nice stepmother.

Brianna and Gabriella – The enduring tale became a teen movie, with Hilary Duff as Samantha/Cinderella/Diner Girl in 2004’s A Cinderella Story. The names are all pitch-perfect for California teenagers in the era. There are twists: Brianna and Gabriella are twins, and there’s a bonus mean girl, cheerleader Shelby.

Britt and Bree – There’s something fun about this duo – individually I wouldn’t notice them, but together, I rather expect them to be horrible! When Selena Gomez stepped into the glass slippers for 2008’s Another Cinderella Story, these were her spoiled stepsisters.

Catherine and Jeanne – You might expect the most unusual stepsister names from Cinderella Monogatari, an Italian-Japanese anime version made for television in 1996. But they went with the tame – and plausible – Catherine and Jeanne.

Charlotte and Gabrielle – The 2013 Broadway reboot of the classic tale is very different, featuring a much more modern spin on the story. Cinderella is Ella, and her stepsisters are Charlotte and Gabrielle – giving all three characters names that they’re likely to share with the girls in their audience.

Clorinda and Tisbe – From the French opera by Isouard. It debuted in 1810, and was the favored version of the tale until Rossini’s Italian version came along in 1817. Rossini kept the stepsisters’ names the same, but called his Cinderella Angelina.

Clothilde – A 2010 Austrian reinvention of the story reduces the stepsisters from two to one – in the German-language Aschenputtel, there’s only Clothilde.

Della and Golda – Back in the 1960s, an off-Broadway production titled just Cindy gave these names to the stepsisters.

Florinda and Lucinda – Stephen Soundheim’s Into the Woods was a Tony Award-winning fairytale extravaganza in the 1990s. It features many a familiar tale, including Cinderella and her two stepsisters. This time, they’re Florinda and Lucinda. A big screen version is coming to theaters this Christmas season.

Hattie and Olive – Ella Enchanted isn’t exactly a Cinderella story – Ella of Frell’s biggest problem is the gift of obedience, not a wayward glass slipper. She does, however, have a pair of rotten stepsisters with these names.

Isobella and Palatine – A 1976 British production gave these names to the stepsisters.

Marguerite and Jacqueline – You’ve probably seen Drew Barrymore’s turn as Cinderella-Danielle in 1998’s fairytale-inspired Ever After. Jacqueline was the nice stepsister, while Marguerite was as wicked as they come.

Minerva and Calliope – Parents of this generation might remember the 1997 television version, featuring Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother, and Brandy in the title role. Her stepsisters? Minerva and Calliope. Whoopi Goldberg played Prince Charming’s mother, and I can’t resist mentioning her name: Constantina.

English: The poster for the opera "Cendri...Odette and Aloisa – From a ballet, first performed in 1893 in St. Petersburg. In Russian, Cinderella is Zolushka.

Portia and Joy – Rodgers and Hammerstein took a shot at a musical adaptation of the classic tale in 1957. It was written for television, with Julie Andrews as Cinderella.

Noemie and Dorothee – In Jules Massenet’s 1899 opera, these are the stepsisters’ names. The artwork in this post is from a production of Massenet’s Cendrillon.

Pearl and Peony – From Marissa Meyer’s Cinder, the first book in her fairytales-revamped extravaganza. Peony is a sweetheart, a BFF for Cinder. Pearl is the traditional villain. Meyer took her novel to a fictional future world in New Beijing – which also takes the Cinderella story back to its roots. One of the earliest versions of the tale comes from ninth century China.

Venus and Olive – Years before Brandy played the princess, Cindy was an all-black production was made for television, set in World War II-era Harlem. Venus and Olive were the stepsisters’ names. The actresses went on to far greater successes – Nell Carter played Olive, and Alaina Reed-Hall – you know her as Sesame Street’s Olivia – was Venus.

(There are going to be better examples that make TedM or outhouse happier, but I'm not going to hunt for them. The premise is too deficient to try to make this some kind of elaborate science project taking a ton of time to research. If he thinks it still makes sense, let him justify the premises.)

The OP attempts to apply a very deterministic and rationalistic paradigm to what is a very haphazard and subjective process. Whatever else you want to say, the OP has a very limited and incorrect understanding of how writers of fiction operate. They are not robots. They are not only able to calculate differences of meaning intended and able to transform that into different symbols for their story. They are not limited to making choices that are explicable or in evidence. They do not need reasons.

The desire to explain everything is being imposed on the text and its author.

The simplest explanation is not very satisfying to a certain lot, but it also makes the best sense: "because they can."

[TedM]

But I'm saying they were more likely important for preserving history than for preserving a newly created history from the hands of Genius Mark

Yes because they changed what was more important and they thought they had a more accurate version that matched their theology better.

Why do you say theology and not history? When there is no indication that the changes involved something with a theological meaning, wouldn't it be more reasonable to conclude that the change was simply in order to more accurately report what they thought happened?